Sex and the City Changes Lives, or the Many Plights of the Single Girl

Every time I eat at a restaurant by myself, I think of that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie asserts that taking yourself out to a nice meal alone, with no book to defend yourself against the great scrutiny around you is an important, liberating part of being single.

Today, nursing a bit of a cold and being grateful for a few minutes to myself, I took myself out to a pho restaurant near campus. This place is not at all famous for its good service, and there are great banks of tables, where they throw you down, shove a menu in your face and promptly ignore you.

I sat there thinking, it's just because I'm alone that the servers keep walking by. If I was in a big group, they'd look at us like potential for a big tip. Or, if I was in a couple, the boy would get the server's attention.

They didn't even offer me a glass of water.

So I had to stop someone and order. And then they forgot my glass of water.

So I had to ask someone else.

And then a large group of students I recognized from student-teaching walked in.

So I hunkered down with my soup and inhaled it, glancing over my lesson plans as defense, eating as quickly and discreetly as I could.

As I sat there, the patrons around me left and suddenly, I was surrounded by other, sadder singles, all men.

And as soon as one of the creepier ones started talking to me, which I figured was inevitable when they all caught my eye as they were seated, I finished my soup, gathered my things, and shot out of the restaurant before any of the kids could recognize me.

Sometimes being a liberated single girl is harder than it looks on TV.